BBMRI Stakeholder's blog

European Parliament Hearing, Brussels

On October 26, 2010 a Public Hearing on Health-Related Research Infrastructures was held in the European Parliament. You can access the programme at ISC or listen via webstream to the presentations.

BBMRI "Biobanking for Science" conference presentations available

Presentations from the BBMRI "Biobanking for Science" conference, which took place on September 27-28, 2010, in Amsterdam, are now available online. 

Keynote speakers include Daan Hommes on "Integrating Electronic Patient Records and Biobanking", Tom Hudson describing "Translating Cancer Genomes into Personalized Health and Disease Management" and David Cox speaking on "Private Public Collaboration and Biobanking Science"

To view pdf copies of the presentations delivered, click here

National Nodes for BBMRI beginning to take shape

The European infrastructure BBMRI has received official commitment for financial support from several EU states (Austria, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, Greece, Czech Republic) for its construction phase planned 2011.

In addition, countries such as Austria, The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Malta are providing funds to support construction of national infrastructures for biobanks, which will be linked to BBMRI, and the issue is under consideration in the relevant ministries from ten other European countries. 

Swedish National Hub

Dutch National Hub

Supplemental to state funds, efforts are being made to seek the support of the European regions - indeed several regions are supportive of biobanks as their regional impact is significant both in relation to socio-economic and R&D impact. 

Moreover, according to reports, it is quite possible that a priority  for biobanks and their integration into European infrastructure could be launched within the framework of infrastructure financing through the general excellence loan of the European Investment Bank (EIB). This would allow Member States to apply for recurrent funding for such infrastructure. 

BBMRI – "Biobanking for Science” Conference

On September 23-25, 2010, the BBMRI consortium will organise the “BBMRI – Biobanking for Science” conference focusing on scientific excellence in the various aspects of biobanking at the Novotel Amsterdam City, Amsterdam, NL.   The conference "BBMRI - Biobanking for Science” brings together leading scientists in the field, young scientists, biobanking managers and practitioners to discuss the science and new approaches in cutting edge biobank research.  

The meeting is organised by the BBMRI Steering Committee, Work Package Leaders and Chairs, the Executive Management Team from the Medical University Graz and the University of Turku. The local organiser is Professor Gert-Jan van Ommen from Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), NL, scientific director of BBMRI-NL.  

Pre-registration will be through personal invitation to all BBMRI Participants and Associated Organisations.  After June 15^th, 2010, registration is opened to the broader community. The registration will be open until July 23^rd 2010.

For more information, click here

Wired: The Sorry State of Cancer Biobanking in USA

Carolyn Compton, The National Cancer Institute (NCI)'s chief biobanking expert gave a revealing interview recently in Wired Magazine.

In the article, Compton laments on the current state of cancer biobanking practices and the problems of the  Cancer Genome Atlas. to acquire appropriate biospecimen samples.

When the NCI drew up its plans for the atlas, dozens of bio-repositories in the US assured the institute that at least 500 samples of each type of tumor could be provided easily. Once the project was under way, however, the researchers got a series of bruising reality checks.

"One bank at a major university claimed to have more than 12,000 samples of glioblastoma in its collection. Only 18 of those were good enough to use. The rate of unacceptable shipments from other institutions ran as high as 99 percent." she said.

To access the full article, click here

eagle-i and VIVOWeb: Facebook for Scientists

Throughout history, there have been many examples of scientists who end up working alone on identical projects just because there was no way to find out about concurrent research on their subject.  When scientists working on similar subjects happen to run into each other they usually consider themselves uncommonly lucky to have found partners and collaborators in their venture.

Two recently-funded conceptions in the USA are trying to make that luck happen for the scientific community - a new Facebook-like service called VIVOweb and a research resource discovery network called eagle-i.